55. ROYAL ADDRESS

Galen’s story

Grizzt’s Tower

During Relos Var’s attack

Galen liked to think he knew something about heat. Not as much as his wife, of course, who had grown up around magical forges and Red Men and all the ways one could possibly melt and shape objects normally quite immune to such treatment. But as familiar with heat as one could be growing up in a household run by men notorious for enjoying temperatures that would send most people straight into heatstroke.

This fire wasn’t right.

It was blue, for one thing—a bright, searing white-hot blue—and when Senera was blown back through the doorway and came tumbling down the stairs, she was already burning, her skin black and charred. He shuddered to think how it would have gone if his wife hadn’t been there. As it was, she’d shut the door the moment Senera was through and raised a magical barrier against the fire.

“It won’t hold long!” Sheloran shouted back over her shoulder. “Does anyone besides these two know how to get through that gate?”

She gestured to a large, wide circle of stone set into the wall. Maybe it wasn’t the portal, but if Galen had to wager on anything in the room being what they were looking for, this was where he’d have bet his metal too.

They only had moments. Even if the fire didn’t melt right through the rock—eminently possible—the air was growing scorching hot. Galen didn’t know how long it would take to reach oven temperatures, but if they didn’t do something soon, they were going to find out.

Sheloran had pulled off her agolé and wrapped it around Senera. And she was crying. Galen couldn’t look at either of them. He couldn’t … he couldn’t look at Senera. The dog that Senera had brought with her was making soft whining noises, all the more horrible because of how quiet they were.

Qown set a hand against Thurvishar’s head. “Please wake up,” he pleaded. “We need you to open up the gate or we’re all going to die.”

Thurvishar either wasn’t as unconscious as they’d feared, or Qown was just that good a healer.

Or Taja liked them.

Thurvishar blinked his dark eyes open. To his credit, the man didn’t delay in order to confirm what was going on, ask questions, check on Senera, or try to wriggle himself off Galen’s shoulder. He muttered something that sounded suspiciously like a bawdy drinking song1 and reached out a hand to touch the edge of the portal. The portal activated, different from what Galen was used to. More delicate and beautiful. Like a million points of starlight dancing around a central axis.

But he’d leave contemplating the nature of non–House D’Aramarin portals for another day. He looked back for just long enough to confirm that his wife had Senera and then ran through the gate. He grabbed Qown’s hand as he passed to make sure the healer didn’t try to do something stupid, like fight off an entire damn dragon all by himself so the rest of them could escape.

Galen set Thurvishar down on the ground the moment he was through, and turned back. Unnecessary, as it turned out. Whatever magic Thurvishar had used to activate the gate closed after the last person—Fayrin—passed through.

The councillor looked down at Senera with a face almost as pale as her normal color. “Is she—?”

“Let me see her!” Qown ripped his arm away from Galen as he scrambled over to where Sheloran had laid the woman.

That was the moment Galen realized they weren’t alone.

He couldn’t say where they were. It felt like being at the bottom of a gigantic well, with mage-lights forming a spiral pattern upward. More comprehensible, however, were the Manol soldiers with bows aimed at them.

Slowly, Galen raised his hands. Fayrin caught on quickly and did as well. Thankfully, the wild dog was too busy fussing over Senera to feel threatened, and thus too busy to get herself shot.²

“We’re here to see Teraeth,” Thurvishar murmured. Qown must have fixed the man’s jaw first, since that sentence was comprehensible. He opened his eyes wider and repeated the same sentence, only louder.³

The vané gave zero indication that they’d understood a single word of that. One motioned to his belt, then pointed at Galen.

Probably ordering him to drop his sword.

“Do, uh … any of us speak vané?” Galen murmured.

Sheloran raised her head and said something in a language Galen absolutely didn’t understand.

She shrugged helplessly at his shocked expression. “Mother taught me. It’s never come up before.”

“Pretty sure you just offered to cook them breakfast,” Thurvishar murmured, still fighting with consciousness himself. He was staring at Senera, his face a wasteland of devastation.

“She’ll be fine,” Galen said. “Qown’s good at this.” Galen didn’t point out the very worried expression on Qown’s face, the one that suggested that being good at this might not be enough.

One of the guards said something to the others and ran off.

He glanced over at Thurvishar. “What did the guard who left say?”

“‘I’d better go fetch His Highness,’” Thurvishar translated.

“Okay,” Galen said. “Yeah, that’s … that’s good, right?” He couldn’t tell if the look on Thurvishar’s face was pain because of his injuries or their situation. “Right?”

Thurvishar lifted his chin. “Probably.” He added, “except Teraeth should be ‘His Majesty’ not ‘His Highness,’ so there’s a possibility that something unexpected has happened.”

Galen swallowed. They’d discussed this, briefly. Teraeth had been absent from the throne from the moment he’d been crowned. They’d talked about the possibility that someone would try to strip the position from him because of that. “Someone” in this case being Kihrin’s mother, Khaeriel, better known to Galen as Miya—the woman who’d murdered him.

He was having a difficult time thinking of the Manol as any kind of shelter.

“Well … they’re not shooting,” Fayrin said. “So far, so good?” He pulled a dagger out of a sleeve and gingerly set it on the floor.

“Yeah,” Galen agreed. “So far, doing great.” The soldiers didn’t seem to be inclined to loose those arrows in their direction so long as any moves they made were slow and involved tossing down weapons, so he was going with that. He slowly unbuckled his scabbard and set the sword on the ground before adding a dagger he kept in a boot.

That seemed to mollify them, but one of the guards made an angry gesture at Fayrin.

“She said, ‘All of them,’” Sheloran explained.

Fayrin sighed and pulled another set of daggers from his sleeves. And then two more from inside his robe. A hairpiece that evidently hid a sharpened edge. And an entire brace of daggers that must have been … strapped to his thigh?

“Where were you hiding all of those?” Galen asked.

The councilman rolled his eyes. “As if you don’t go around armed.”

“Not when I’m wearing my bedclothes!”

Fayrin shrugged. “That sounds like your mistake.”

The same guard—Galen could only assume she was using magic—made one last angry comment. Sheloran didn’t translate. She just raised an eyebrow at Fayrin.

The man sighed and removed a ring, setting it on top of the rest of the weapons.

Galen couldn’t be certain, but he thought the vané was grudgingly impressed.

Movement from the stairs alerted Galen to a change. He glanced up to see a group of vané heading their way. The leader wasn’t Teraeth—that was obvious enough from skin color, even at a distance. Compared to most of the vané here, this new arrival was drab. His clothing was colorful enough, but his hair was a tame chestnut, his skin nearly the same shade of brown as Galen’s own. At least his eyes were—

Wait.

Galen felt his hands close into fists, unable to stop himself. He did manage, barely, to fight off the impulse to stand as straight as possible. To adjust his clothes.

Apparently, when they’d said “His Highness,” they hadn’t been referring to vané royalty, but the Quuros kind.

“Hello, Grandfather,” Galen said.